In the latest issue of The Bootleg Magazine, we released
the 30 finalists for The Bootleg Honor Roll award for the 2007/2008
school-year.
The criteria are as follows:
Each academic year, The
Bootleg's Honor Roll will recognize the top ten Stanford student-athletes who
have performed at an exceptional level, with athletic accomplishments that are
both extraordinary and inspirational. While achieving athletic success,
these athletes should also have displayed uncommon leadership, sportsmanship and
respect towards their fellow teammates and opponents. Finally, these
honorees' performances and actions should also demonstrate their love for their
particular sport as well as their school pride, the famed “Spirit of
Stanford.”
During the summer months, we are releasing the 10 winners
of this prestigious award, one by one. We have previously recognized
baseball’s Jason Castro, gymnastics’ David Sender, swimming’s Julia Smit and
Paul Kornfeld, soccer's Rachel Buehler, track’s Erica McLain and runner
Arianna Lambie as amongst this year’s winners. Our eighth announced member of
The Bootleg's 2007-08 Honor Roll is volleyball’s Foluke
Akinradewo.
Honor Roll Winner: Foluke
Akinradewo
If TheBootleg.com had a fashion Honor Roll, we
might give Foluke Akinradewo the nod for her ubiquitous sunglasses, which make
her stand out immediately to the most casual of fans (as if her 6’3”
presence in the front and center of Stanford’s formation weren’t enough). But
once a match starts, Foluke’s play needs no accessories to command the majority
of an opponents’ attention. Despite regularly facing double and triple teams,
Akinradewo hit an astronomical .499, which shattered her old school-record
hitting percentage by .068, the Pac-10 record by more than .050 and placed a
narrow second all-time in NCAA history. In my opinion, and the statistics
certainly back this up, while Akinradewo hasn’t enjoyed the career of a Candice
Wiggins, Erica McLain or David Sender, she had the most dominant 2007-08 of any
Stanford athlete. For her standout performance this past fall, TheBootleg
welcomes Foluke as its eighth 2007-08 Honor Roll winner.
Akinradewo was
the AVCA National Player of the Year, the Pac-10 Player of the Year and a
consensus first-team All-American after her junior season this past year. Her hitting percentage
was superlative, but so was the rest of her game, as her kills (4.11 per game,
485 total), points (4.94 per game), and blocks (a team-best 143) suggest.
Teammates Cynthia Barboza and Alix Klineman are every bit as talented
as Foluke, but the junior from Plantation, Fla. set herself apart with a
consistency in her play that her teammates sometimes lacked. Foluke notched double-digit kills in 31 of Stanford's 35 matches and hit above .400 in 27 of those matches. [For the unfamiliar, a hitting
percentage in volleyball is (Kills – Errors)/Attempts. Hitting percentages have
more variance than baseball batting averages, but generally, a good hitting
percentage would be a good batting average and vice versa, which hints at just
how incredible Foluke’s .499 is. By means of comparison, Stanford hit .316 as a
team this year (.280 without Foluke’s contributions), and held its opponents to
just .181. Franci Gerard, Stanford’s next-best starting hitter, hit .317,
Barboza .281 and Klineman .276. .499 is PlayStationesque.]
Foluke also
showed an impeccable sense of timing, with her game time and again rising to match the
importance of the occasion. In one of Stanford’s biggest matches of the regular
season, Foluke managed 20 kills and three aces as Stanford beat archrival Cal in
the full five games to clinch the Pac-10 title. In the NCAA Tournament, Foluke
dug deeper yet. First, she hit north of .550 in the first two rounds as Stanford
swept overmatched opponents. She then hit .682(!) with 15 kills in a Regional
Semifinal win over Cal Poly. The next night, she propelled Stanford into the Final Four
with 18 kills against UCLA in the Regional Finals, and earned
the Stanford Regional MVP award.
In the NCAA Semifinals against
USC, Akinradewo hit .523 with 26 kills and a season-high nine blocks. Perhaps
most impressively though, she was one of few Stanford players to shine in the NCAA
Championship loss to Penn State, tallying 18 kills, six blocks and a .425
hitting percentage – even though the Nittany Lions quickly learned they could
get away with doubling and tripling Foluke that night. Akinradewo placed on the
NCAA Final Four All-Tournament team, and was also a National Player of the Week
and two-time Pac-10 Player of the Week.
Akinradewo became the sixth
Stanford women’s volleyballer to win the Honda Award, given to the top female
volleyball player nationally. She joins previous Cardinal winners such as
Kristin Folkl, Logan Tom and Ogonna Nnamani.
In the classroom, Akinradewo
is a human biology major, a pre-med, and a prospective orthopedic surgeon.
As of press time, Akinradewo needs to survive the US National Team’s cut
from 19 to 12 to make the Olympic Team. Akinradewo and Barboza are the only
collegians still in contention to compete for USA Volleyball at the
Olympics.
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